Totally agree. I used to have discussions about how to emulate real world stuff during down time between takes. Eventually the conversation steered towards CGI. My friends were interns for Apple, and they were on the inside track of what was to come about (this was circa 1987). They were of the opinion that computers would do everything someday.

Where I believed that, I didn't think it a good thing. To me CGI looks like plastic. And now that it's gotten to be more expensive than shooting real actors/crowds/stunts, one wonders why it's used as often as it is.

I think CGI is excellent for smoke and water, but I prefer models or real actors for lots of other stuff.

I'm currently working on a Dreamworks project - %100 1:1 scale animatronic creatures with pyro !

Zero CG apart from some projection effects

Pity its not a film

Film - you know, I kind of shrug my shoulders at film verse digital. I mean, it's cheaper to store bits than to store film canisters, but every time I worked on a digital project the light's always organized differently. Like they said on another thread, you can get better diffusion with film than with chips.

One of the first thing eveybody noticed with digital cameras is the vertical light streaks shooting up and down the frame. You couldn't get regular diffused highlights anymore. I often wondered what our projects from the 80s and 90s would've looked like with digital cameras.

Simply because I'm an unemployed former Stage Manager, AD, SFX assistant etc., and I like to name drop just to show I'm not a pathetic loser on this BBS by mining other peoples' past glories, even though I am , I worked for the guys who did the following;

I used to ask about filming that sequence, but the guy I used to work for would only take a drag on his cigarette, then throw it on the ground, and bitterly say "That f____ing thing." before walking off. Regardless of how difficult for him it might've seemed, it's a sterling piece of work.

To me CGI still looks like plastic animation. I saw the latest "John Carter" trailer about 20 minutes ago, and as impressive as the detail of art is, I think the motions and physics still make it look fake. With Jedi you accept that what you're looking at isn't real, but allow the action to sweep over you, convincing you it's real.

A small proportion of of the original Star Wars trilogy had some pretty serious bluescreen extraction problems, especially in some of the pyro. The digital redo of all the compositing really did help in some cases.

Yeah, the travelling mattes really stood out in the original telecines for the home video market. Cleaning that up is a very effective use of digital technology. But the CGI models and motions, to me at least, look inferior to actual physical models.

There's an interesting point regarding motion because the models used in that sequence were on motion control cranes that probably used very similar mathematics to produce interpolated motion as the computer programs that replace them. They also probably have far poorer lighting interaction with the surrounding objects, and of course there's the problem of adequately matting the whole thing together without leaving a big black outline around everything.

I think the only place the models really shine is in the surface textures, motion and lens effects, and lighting, which by definition are accurate to real world behaviour. There's always the danger of an enormous brush mark or glue line, of course, but computers are only now starting to become capable of rendering radiosity and other types of global illumniation (at least in reasonable time) that really gives things that last nudge into reality.

Certain things, like smoke, fire and other small particle effects, are still tricky.

There's an interesting point regarding motion because the models used in that sequence were on motion control cranes that probably used very similar mathematics to produce interpolated motion as the computer programs that replace them. They also probably have far poorer lighting interaction with the surrounding objects, and of course there's the problem of adequately matting the whole thing together without leaving a big black outline around everything.

I think the only place the models really shine is in the surface textures, motion and lens effects, and lighting, which by definition are accurate to real world behaviour. There's always the danger of an enormous brush mark or glue line, of course, but computers are only now starting to become capable of rendering radiosity and other types of global illumniation (at least in reasonable time) that really gives things that last nudge into reality.

Certain things, like smoke, fire and other small particle effects, are still tricky.

I don't know what "radiosity" is, but it sounds like simulated sunlight; i.e. brightness and at what angle the rays hit the object.